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Monday, 7 January 2013

Breakfast Club Hoxton: no fasting here

Clear thinking for cloudy heads

Breakfast on a hangover is like water in the desert. It doesn't really matter what it tastes like, just that it's there. So to my mind, opening a restaurant that serves breakfast all day is a no-brainer. And it works for The Breakfast Club. I've heard rumours of queues outside its Islington branch from opening time to closing, which to me seems bonkers. We queue for the clubs, get drunk, go to bed and then queue again.

Luckily, most people don't go out on Sundays (only the Aussies in West London) so the Hoxton Breakfast Club was pretty quiet when we went there for a pick me up. It wasn't a traditional hangover, more of a Christ-we're-back-at-work-after-Christmas-and-my-head-hurts hangover. But they can be even worse.

So we settled into some tall chairs and quickly established a non-work related chat rule, largely ruing that Meat Mission wasn't open today. However, our eyes lit up after one glimpse of the menu. Like a kid with a new sticker book my eyes flitted across the pages, torn between going everywhere and not wanting to stick to anything and risk getting it wrong. I changed from the burrito, to the pulled pork sandwich, to the all-American Pancakes, to the chorizo hash browns. It was there that I stuck my sticker.

And I don't regret it... despite there not being a hash brown in sight. It was actually two chorizo sausages THAT WERE INCREDIBLE cooked to within an inch of their life, served with two fried eggs, shrooms and a big smattering of fried potatoes with peppers and onions. So more of a straight hash, except all served separately. The tats weren't as crispy as they should have been, nor were the onions. But it didn't matter, because of those sausages. GOD those sausages. I need to find their supplier. I will buy some. In fact, I will buy the supplier.

I was probably the happiest of my colleagues though. While to my left one demolished his burrito without saying one word (always a good sign), another complained his burger bun was dry and too big (both true) and his coleslaw bland (even more true) despite the token herbs, seemingly just there to break the monotony of the white unseasoned cream. My final colleague wasn't so much unhappy as angry. He had been defeated. A bearded man with a big appetite, he had laughed in the face of the American-sized portion of his all-American pancakes. Until he saw it: so much bacon it was like spaghetti on the plate, four (slightly dry) pancakes, two poached eggs, two sausages and fried potatoes. Not a vegetable in sight, just wall to wall protein and carb. And he buckled, broken like a man kicked in the balls. He couldn't look the waiter in the eye as he took his plate away, with four pancakes, half the potatoes and a good few rashers of bacon left untouched.

I imagine a lot of people are sick in the Breakfast Club. But cocky, tired and potentially still drunk revellers tend to have eyes bigger than stomachs, and only beer-fuelled nausea in their immediate future. Which is a shame, because the food is pretty good for the price, and the toilets well hidden.

About Me

Jonny Garrett is a twenty-something food writer, professional beer lover and restaurant critic.
In everything he does he tries to convey those closest of companions, truth and humour, along with as much knowledge as wikipedia will allow him.